Cancer Vaccine May Help Patients With Melanoma Spread To The Lungs

Date:

May 15, 2001

Source:

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital

Summary:

A custom-made vaccine created from a patient’s own cancer tumor cells appears effective in prolonging the survival of patients with malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of the skin cancer, that is removed after having spread to the lung.

Share:

Total shares:

FULL STORY

A custom-made vaccine created from a patient’s own cancer tumor cells appears effective in prolonging the survival of patients with malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of the skin cancer, that is removed after having spread to the lung.

David Berd, M.D., professor of medicine at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and a member of Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center, and his colleagues had previously shown the vaccine was effective in treating patients with malignant melanoma, the fastest growing cancer in the United States. The vaccine is termed autologous, meaning that it’s prepared from a patient’s own cancer cells. Before injecting the cells into patients, the cells are inactivated and then treated with dinitrophenyl (DNP), which is a chemical known as a hapten and which modifies them. The altered cells appear foreign enough to the immune system for it to react against them.

In the current study, Dr. Berd and his co-workers gave the vaccine to 37 patients with advanced (stage IV) melanoma that has spread beyond the lymph nodes. Twenty patients had cancer that had spread to the lung. The others had disease spread to other areas. Each had surgery to completely remove the cancer.

Dr. Berd found that giving the DNP vaccine to those patients following their surgery resulted in an estimated 59 percent of patients living three years, which he terms a “good response for these patients.” Only 10 to 20 percent of such patients typically live five years or more with surgery alone.

He reports his team’s results May 14 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San Francisco.

“The unexpected finding is that those with lung metastasis so far are doing better than those with soft tissue metastasis,” says Dr. Berd. “The opposite should be true according to what is published in the medical literature. This goes along with our previous observation that the vaccine is more likely to cause shrinkage of inoperable lung metastases than of skin metastases.”

The researchers also found that nearly all of the patients had a positive immunological skin test called the delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) test, indicating an aroused immune system to their own tumor cells following vaccine. Dr. Berd has shown in the past that the patients who had a better DTH response to the modified cancer cells lived longer than those who did not.

Dr. Berd has shown the vaccine to be effective in other trials. In an expanded Phase II trial of 214 melanoma patients with disease spread to either one or two lymph node areas, he reported last year that 47 percent lived for five years. Those with cancer spread to only one lymph node area did even better (50 percent five-year survival). The surgical cure rate is about 20 percent for these patients.

Dr. Berd and his colleagues participate in a Phase III trial to test the effectiveness of the vaccine on patients with disease that has spread to the lymph nodes. AVAX Technologies, Inc., of Kansas City, MO, which has exclusive rights to the Jefferson-based vaccine against malignant melanoma, sponsors the trial. The five-year randomized trial compares the effectiveness of the melanoma vaccine to the standard treatment, which is alpha interferon. The trial will involve approximately 400 patients seen at institutions in several major cities. More than 40,000 new cases and 7,000 deaths will occur this year from the disease, the fifth most common cancer in the nation.

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "Cancer Vaccine May Help Patients With Melanoma Spread To The Lungs." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 May 2001. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010515075955.htm>.

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. (2001, May 15). Cancer Vaccine May Help Patients With Melanoma Spread To The Lungs. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 2, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010515075955.htm

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "Cancer Vaccine May Help Patients With Melanoma Spread To The Lungs." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010515075955.htm (accessed August 2, 2015).

July 31, 2015  School is just around the corner, which means backpacks and packed lunches await your children. One expert offers tips for parents to promote healthy dental habits while away from ... read more

July 29, 2015  By blocking the expression of a certain gene in patients, researchers have contributed to the demonstration of great decreases in the concentration of triglycerides in their ... read more

July 29, 2015  Viewing aquarium displays led to noticeable reductions in blood pressure and heart rate, a research team found in the first study of its kind. They also noted that higher numbers of fish helped to ... read more

July 24, 2014  Skin cancer cells work together to spread further and faster, according to a new study. In a tumor, the faster growing cells 'piggy-back' along with the more invasive cells, so together ... read more

Feb. 18, 2014  Cancer cell spread to the sentinel node -- the lymph node to which cancer cells are most likely to spread from a primary tumor -- is a risk factor for melanoma death. The prognosis of a patient ... read more

Aug. 22, 2013  A new study could offer hope to people with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Researchers are investigating whether an injectable known as PV-10 can shrink tumors and reduce the spread of ... read more